In recent years, hard disk drives (hereinafter referred to as HDDs) have been used in various kinds of fields, such as personal computers (PCs) and television (TV) receivers, as the HDDs are downsized and the capacity thereof is increased. On the other hand, HDDs are less resistant to vibration and heat, and failures in the HDDs frequently cause troubles. To address this problem, a HDD is monitored and a warning is given to the user when the state thereof deteriorates.
A conventional HDD monitoring apparatus is described hereinafter.
Conventionally, a common way of monitoring a HDD is to acquire information on control of the HDD obtained by a SMART function, which will be detailed later, at a predetermined time interval, and to give a warning to the user when data to be the factors responsible for failures is detected. The control information on the HDD includes the time and frequency of energization of the HDD, information on the temperature rise of the HDD, and information on the number of defective sectors. Because such control information is related to the factors of failures in the HDD, acquiring and analyzing such control information allows the failures in the HDD to be foreseen.
FIG. 8 is a block diagram of a conventional HDD monitoring apparatus. A description is provided of the conventional HDD monitoring apparatus, with reference to FIG. 6.
In FIG. 8, HDD monitor 80 is made of controller 81, elapsed time detector 82, and HDD control information acquirer 83.
Controller 81 detects information from elapsed time detector 82. When a predetermined time period has elapsed, HDD control information acquirer 83 acquires information on control of a HDD (not shown), and controller 81 determines the acquired value. When the state of the HDD has deteriorated, controller 81 gives a warning to the user.
Such a conventional HDD monitoring apparatus is disclosed in Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication No. H09-259014, for example.
When a personal computer (PC) is shocked by falling while the HDD thereof is in operation, the data recording/reproducing head hits and damages the surface of the disk. Thus, the data cannot be reproduced. In the worst case, the entire recording surface of the disk cannot be used, in other words, the HDD is destroyed.
A recent small HDD incorporated in a notebook PC has a head retracting mechanism to increase shock resistance thereof during operation. In a HDD, for example, the recording/reproducing head is retracted in a position at a distance from the disk surface and locked in the position by a head locking mechanism in an idling state thereof (when the motor of the HDD, which will be described later, is stopped) in which access is not requested for a predetermined time period, even with the HDD not in operation (when the PC is in a power-off, shut down, or stand-by state described later) and in operation. This structure can avoid occurrence of the HDD troubles, such as physical damages to the surface of the disk caused by the shock of the head to the surface of the disk, in the idling state while the HDD is not in operation.
On the other hand, while the HDD is in operation and not in the idling state, i.e. while the motor of the HDD is started and rotated so that the data is accessible by the head, there is still a high possibility of occurrence of the troubles. However, the motor is started even when the HDD is stopped so that the data is accessible and the control information can be acquired at a predetermined time interval. Thus, contrary to the expectations, this structure poses a problem of inducing troubles while the motor of the HDD is running.